About the HSRAANZ

Founded in 2001, the Health Services Research Association of Australia & New Zealand (HSRAANZ) supports and promotes the conduct and dissemination of applied research to improve the delivery and organisation of health services in Australia and New Zealand. With a wide range of individual and corporate members from universities, research centres, government departments, independent government agencies, and consumer groups the Association bridges the gap between research and policy, as well as reflecting consumer issues. We also have two special interest groups, focussing on Emerging Researchers and Indigenous Health Services Research, both of which have a prominent role at our main conference. [read more]

RT @E_A_Lynch: How to make evidence more acceptable and acceptable to improve uptake #trishontour t.co/a5bmw04eYPMon Mar 12 23:45:45 +0000 2018

Member Focus

We are pleased to welcome our latest Corporate Member. The NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre is an academic research organisation at the University of Sydney, Australia and a leader in the conduct of large-scale collaborative clinical trials and high quality trial related research in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and perinatal disorders.

The Centre's health economics group undertakes methodological and applied health services research including within-trial and modelled economic evaluations, preference studies and meta-analyses that inform health policy and decision making.

Presented by Dr Catalin Tufanaru from the Joanna Briggs Institute this webinar draws on the insights from the works of brilliant statisticians, such as Fisher, Neyman, Pearson, Lindley, Birnbaum, Pratt, Raiffa, Good and Tukey to present the fundamental issues related to the debate regarding the distinction between conclusions and decisions in quantitative research.

The productivity commission has released their draft report on competition and user choice in human services for comment by written submission by Friday 14 July and public hearings. The report makes a number of recommendations for improving the provision of health care including caring for people at the end of their life as well as hospital and dental services.

An online national survey of researchers is underway to confirm the ‘High Value or Core data Collections’ that should be made available across Australia for linked data research in health and the range of human services. Have your say!

On Tuesday 23 May 2017 the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer held a workshop on “Adding health economics to your cancer research”.

The workshop was designed to illustrate how health economics can be incorporated into health-based practice or research, with a focus on cancer research.

The methods and results of health economics research conducted within the cancer field were be presented by leaders in this field, including the HSRAANZ President Prof Jon Karnon and member Dr Alison Pearce.

Australia has one of the highest rates of overweight and obesity among developed nations. General practitioners and practice nurses are well placed to intervene, but there are currently no widely implemented weight management programs in Australian general practice. The UK-based Counterweight Program provides a structured, evidence-based model for managing obesity in adults that can be delivered by practice nurses as part of routine clinical care. A recent Australian feasibility study demonstrated that Australian general practice staff and patients found Counterweight to be feasible, acceptable and perceived it as valuable; however, funding limitations were identified as the biggest challenge to continued program delivery.

In this article from Croakey unpacking current health policy concerns, long-term rural health advocate, Gordon Gregory, argues that “health reform” is a term that is much over-used and inappropriately applied.

In particular, he queries the usefulness of Health Minister Greg Hunt’s characterisation of three “waves of health reform”.

However, Gregory, former CEO of the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA), does offer the Minister a way out of the froth and boil of crashing waves – with a list of 16 areas where “real and desirable” reforms could be made.